The Statistics on Your Online Reputation

The Statistics on Your Online Reputation

In the past, reputation management wasn’t something most people worried about. Only celebrities and company heads bothered to protect their reputation, but now anyone who has a personal history that’s posted online has a reputation there. Even if you aren’t using a computer, your reputation and your name are online somewhere. Whether you like it or not, it is a part of your existence and it is one that may affect you in the future. Here are some things to know about your online reputation.
1. The majority of companies operating today have actually turned down applications because of something they found out about them online.
2. Nearly 70% of all hiring managers said that they hired someone because of something good they found out about them online. Many of them said that they thought the way the person portrayed themselves online would make them a good candidate for their company.
3. A survey conducted by Execunet in 2010 showed that about three quarters of all human resources professionals were told by their superiors to check out potential employees online.
4. The survey also revealed that about 90% of recruiters admitted that it was fine to look at applicants online before ever conducting an interview with them.
5. A whopping 90% of all recruiters believe that searching for someone on Google is a great way to find out more about them before heiring them.
6. Ruby Media Group conducted a study that revealed almost half of all HR reps said they discovered things about potential hires online that they considered to be deal breakers.
7. Microsoft’s study on the matter showed that about 2% of recruiters admitted to never conducting online searches of potential hires.
8. The majority of those doing the hiring said that they make use of search engines to learn about job applicants, while around 63% focused on social networking sites to find out more.
9. A surprisingly small 27% said they bothered with background checks.
10. Nearly 60% of HR reps say that your lifestyle can keep you from getting a job, while 56% say that comments posted online of an unprofessional nature are deal breakers. Just over half said that unprofessional photos put applicants at risk.
11. A small percentage (15%) of applicants believe it is fine to look at job applicants’ photos to find content that might be a deal breaker. Nearly 60 of recruiters were fine with it.
12. A massive 86% of recruiters say that having a good online rep can make a huge difference as to whether someone is hired or not.
13. Most recruiters prefer to use LinkedIn to look at candidates more closely. About 75% of them use that service, according to a Harris Interactive survey. 48% of them will use Facebook to look, while 26% use Twitter.
14. Some recruiters will follow potential hires on Twitter (about 7%).
15. Colleges even find out about their applicants by looking online (about 26%).
16. The industry that is most likely to search online to find out more about candidate is the IT industry at 63%.
17. Nearly 90% of people will look at a CEO’s reputation when attempting to make an opinion about their company.
18. Only about 15% of all executives think that their online reputation could hurt their career opportunities.
19. The three behaviours that make employers look elsewhere for applicants are pictures that include drinking or other drugs, photos of an inappropriate nature, and a poor communication ability.
20. People are Googling other people’s names all the time. Some estimates put those numbers at 50 million times each day.